The Voldy Chase
by GoogleyEyes
Summary: When Phoebe O'Brien joined the aurrors she expected more rushing around chasing bad guys and less writing of endless reports. So when she's invited to join the legendary Order of The Phoenix she jumps at the opportunity. What she didn't release was that Voldy wasn't the only thing she was about to go in search for - she's also trying to capture the heart of a much older man (BK 5)
1. Chapter 1

Aurors are kind of like teenage girls.

When a teenage girl decided that she's obsessed with a male celebrity she will stop at nothing until she has learned off by heart every last detail there is to know. She follows their every move religiously. She plasters photos of them all over her bedroom and writes their name over and over in her little notebook, usually encapsulated with her own name inside a pretty love heart. And, most importantly, she will never be satisfied in life until she has seen him face to face.

Well, that's kind of how aurors feel about criminals. And Voldemort is kind of like my Justin Beiber.

He had always had some twisted allure for me. It was like the ultimate puzzle – where is Voldemort hiding and how do we catch him? Because I was positive that he was still alive. A bastard with that much brain power and magical ability isn't going to be defeated by a toddler, no matter what kind of weird magic is being thrown about and I was ready to argue my point of view until the sun went down with anyone who challenged it.

So, naturally, when the rumours of his return to full power started circulating I sat up and paid attention. I had barely finished auror training and I was working in one of the minor areas of the Voldy investigation, exactly where I wanted to be. The entire ministry was living in denial about Harry Potter's claim that Voldy had risen up – except for the auror department. If anyone had really been paying attention, it would be pretty obvious that at least some of the Ministry took their jobs seriously.

The auror department suddenly had four extra people working on the Voldy case. An entire section of the offices had been reassigned and cordoned off from main access. Only the higher ranking aurors from the Voldy case specifically were allowed to enter the space. Reported sightings of Voldy and/or deatheater behaviour now had to be followed up within 72 hours of the initial witness statement and the report had to filed in no more than five working days – whereas before the Triwizard final, eye-witness accounts might not have been properly investigated for four or five weeks.

Rufus Scrimgeour, the head honcho of the auror department could be seen around the offices much more frequently and occasionally he would take a special interest in a particular aspect of the investigation, be it a witness report or a location search.

The Hypothetical Disaster Prevention Department – HDPD – had dedicated three of it's top researchers to the Voldy case. It was their job to come up with potential events or disasters that might occur, for example if Voldemort rose to power tomorrow, and they would research all of the possible advantages he might have and all the possible resources he might try to tap into and then they would try to make a plan to counter the disaster.

They would build up insanely detailed reports on how the department should deal with these hypothetical disasters so that if they did by some coincidence occur then we would be somewhat prepared, and every few months the reports that had been compiled had to be updated and the research had to be redone and the conclusions had to be revaluated so that none of the info was ever outdated.

Though there was a nucleated group of people who were directly in charge of this opporation, a lot of the grunt work, like trawling through newspaper archives to find relevant articles and such, was handed down the chain of command, so I spent a large portion of my time researching topics and areas of interest, though I was never told what imaginary scenario they were trying to prepare for at any one stage. That knowledge was restricted to a very very small number of people.

It was my dream to be on that team. I could think of nothing I would like to be doing more than sitting in a room with badass aurors just making up shit that Voldy might do and trying to come up with a counter-strategy.

When I signed up for the auror program I expected there to be more... action. I was prepared for dramatic chases through Diagon Ally and crazy spell work and general awesomeness. The reality was far from the dream. I never realised how much desk-work it took to catch the bad guy. Every piece of information had to be verified twice over before anyone acted on it. Any and all occurrences had to be documented down to the last detail, you practically had to count the nose hairs on the witnesses before submitting the report to your boss. Half the time they were more concerned with covering their asses than catching some dark wizards. But I still loved it.

And sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes some investigation or deadline or something would keep some of us back really late into the night and we'd order some food from some house elf food delivery service and the older aurors who had been around during the war against Voldy would come out with some incredible stories. I lived for those moments.

And yet, most of the time I was stuck filing witness accounts. Like today...

I had a desk in a row of four of five other desks all pushed in together, each occupied by a relatively new auror. There were no dividers or guards to conceal your space so you had absolutely no privacy. It wasn't until you started to work on the important stuff that required some discretion that you were given your own personal sectioned off desk. But they just lumped all of the newbies in together. We weren't even all working on the same case. Maria, the girl directly next to be was involved in the small section devoted to the running and maintenance of Azkaban prison. Thadeus, the guy who entered the program two years ahead of me, had been sucked into the investigation about shops that sold dark artefacts and the clientele that these shops attracted.

Today I was forced to work away from the desk, however. I was copying documents, which involved the very boring task of magically duplicating the piece of paper, than running a magical comparison between the original and the copy to make sure there were no mistakes. I wasn't allowed to do more than one at a time because apparently it's easier to miss typos and mistakes if you try to do it en masse. I had seven large piled of different documents to copy and there simply wasn't room on my desk to accommodate this task. I was forced to find a secluded corner of the office and conjure up a large enough table for me to lay out everything properly.

It was mind numbing work. I needed to take a break every twenty minutes or so just so that my brain cells could be reminded what stimulus felt like. I drank copious amounts of tea which was an excellent way of forcing myself to take a break because whenever the cup was empty I stood up to make myself another. And as well as that, the liquid intake was rapidly replenishing my bladder so I had to get up to go to the bathroom frequently.

It was on one of my many trips to the mini kitchen set up in the corner of the office that I bumped into Nymphadora Tonks. I had just flicked the kettle on when she landed her mug on the counter top beside me and took a tea bag out of the box.

"Whatcher, Phoebe!"

"Hi, Tonks! How's it going?"

"Oh, you know, same old same old. Where have you been all day, I haven't seen you at your desk?"

"Copying," I rolled my eyes. "If you have anything urgent to say to me you better do it soon because I think the monotony is killing my soul." She laughed.

"Yeah, I hated copying when I was new. But we all have to do it! Pity the You Know Who investigation is moving so slowly..." She nonchalantly poured boiling water into both of our mugs.

"You're telling me! I just want to grab Fudge by the ear and yank it until he agrees to admit that Voldemort is back so that we can have some proper funding and do some real auror work!" Tonks barely flinched at the name. She gave me a side long glance as she added milk to her tea.

"So you believe all this, then? You Know Who being back and all?"

"Hell Yeah! I mean, Albus Dumbledore may be many things but he is _not_ the gullible idiot that they are trying to make him out to be... I can't imagine he's the kind of person who would just believe anything he's told. There must have been some sort of compelling evidence for him to even be persuaded that Voldemort had returned, let alone stake his entire reputatiom on that belief. And if Albus Dumbledore is willing to sacrifice everything to warn us then I'm not going to just ignore him. Do you not agree?"

"Oh, no, I agree completely. I agree completely..." She looked hesitant for a second. "Say, Phoebe... if you really think he's back then why don't you do something about it?" Her voice had dropped a little.

"I'm trying! I joined the aurors, didn't I? But if you have something else I can do that isn't so dependant on politics and public opinion and all that crap then, please, just let me know."

"Well actually," Tonks moved closer to me and her voice dropped even further. "How much do you know about the Order of the Phoenix?"

I knew what it was, of course. Anyone who knew anything about the War knew a little about the mysterious group that fought against Voldemort separately from the official offensive led by the Ministry. But I didn't know any details and I told her as much.

"If you want to fight against You Know Who for real, then come to Grimmauld Place, London tomorrow evening at 8 o'clock." Then she said goodbye to me in her normal, cheery tone and walked away with her tea.

I was completely and utterly drawn in. If the Order of the Phoenix still existed and they were working to fight Voldy _right now _then of course I wanted to be part of it. That wasn't even a question, really.

It took all my control not to run back to my desk with my tea. I kept repeating the words 'Grimmauld Place, London' inside my head incase I forgot them and as soon as I could lay my hands on a quill I wrote it down on a piece of parchment and put it in my pocket.

I spent the rest of the day fantasising about The Order of the Phoenix as I blindly copied documents.


	2. Chapter 2

The next evening at 7:55 I found myself standing in a residential street occupied mostly by muggles. It looked as grim as its name led me to believe – the paint was peeling off many of the doors and several broken windows were illuminated by the street lights. There were even piles of rubbish bags in front of a lot of the houses. It was late September, so darkness had already fallen a few hours ago which only made the street look more ominous.

At first I thought I had come to the wrong place. I took out the piece of parchment on which I had hastily scribbled the street name and, concentrating hard on the words, I twisted on the spot. I was sucked into the suffocating tube of apparition only to come out on exactly the same street, 5 meters from the spot I had originally been standing in.

My aurror senses didn't like this at all. My instinct was to trust Tonks... but half of my aurror training had been about building up a natural suspicion for every situation and every person I ever encountered in my life ever. Buuut, the other half of my training had been about using a mixture of instincts and aurror skills to decide quickly how to react in a situation like this. And my instincts told me to stay. But my training told me to get the hell out.

_If in doubt, get out of sight._

The mantra of my professor for the class about defensive behaviour floated back to me. She had been a much older woman than most of the teachers and she sat in a comfortable armchair for almost all of our lectures. She had enchanted a piece of chalk to write on a wide black board for us to take notes. At the beginning of each class she would write those words in large letters on the board and order us all to take it down so at the beginning of each set of notes we all had this phrase. Then she would pick a person at random to read it out loud. Then she would say it out loud herself, and use it throughout each lecture. We used to joke among ourselves that by the end of the year we would all wake up in the middle of the night shrieking it to ourselves. But now I understood why she had ingrained it in our minds. And I was grateful.

I moved quickly into a dark area beside the steps leading to house number four. One of the street lights was broken and there were no internal lights coming from either house 3 or 4 so the grassy spot beside the steps was almost completely black. As soon as I was in the shadows I put a disillusionment charm on myself and crouched down, staring out at the street.

When my watch said exactly 7:59 I saw Tonks walk out onto the street from somewhere to my right. I hadn't heard any noise so she couldn't have aparated. She must have walked out of one of the houses.

I waited for a few moments. Tonks just stood there waiting. After less than a minute, there was loud crack in the street and a tall, imposing figure appeared in the darkness. He stepped forward and I immediately recognised Albus Dumbledore, my old headmaster, wearing navy robes that fluttered around his ankles in the evening breeze.

"Ah, Nymphadora! Good evening. I hope you are well?" He strode up to her.

"Yes, quite well, thank you Albus. And yourself?" She sounded a little bit reserved but otherwise cheerful. She kept her voice low and kept glancing in different directions, probably trying to spot me.

"Splendid, splendid. I believe we are to be joined tonight by your friend?"

"Yes. I told her to be her at 8 but she doesn't seem to..." Tonks trailed off and looked around again. I decided that this was safe enough. No one could do a Dumbledore impression _that_ well.

I took the disillusionment charm off myself and enjoyed the warm trickling sensation as I stepped out of the shadows.

"Hi," I said to announce my presence.

"Phoebe, good evening!" Dumbledore smiled as he spotted me.

"Go-good evening, Proffesser Dubmbledore," I wasn't quite sure what to call him. I hadn't had any interaction with him since leaving Hogwarts. In fact, I had never had one to one contact with him except for once in my third year in Hogwarts when I had won an essay competition in a weekly magazine called _Defensive Magic. _

"Please, call me Albus. Now, I believe you have expressed an interest in the Order of the Phoenix?" I nodded. "Forgive me, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to verify your identity. One simple question will do the trick. You understand, of course. You grew up in Ireland, is that correct?"

"Uh, yes?" I nodded again. At first I thought this was his one simple question but I couldn't see how this would prove anything. It was common knowledge that I had grown up in Ireland and I still had my accent. But then he continued with a different question.

"Could you tell me the first name of the charming old woman who used to run McCabe's Grocers down the road from you?" I was startled. How on earth did he know the answer to that...?

"Mary," I answered promptly. He had shocked the answer out of me. "Mary McCabe. Though, it is Ireland, Dumbledore, half the population is called Mary. If I was a death eater it wouldn't be that difficult for me to guess..."

He let out a small chuckle and there was a tiny indulgent smile on his face as he pulled a small piece of parchment from his pocket.

"As witty as ever, I see. Please read this, Phoebe." He handed me the parchement. It read _12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London. _"Do you have it memorised?" He asked me.

I looked up to answer him and as I did so a house grew out of nowhere down the street. I understood immediately. They had obviously been using the Fidelius Charm. Dumbledore must be secret keeper. The location suddenly made a lot more sense now.

Dumbledore took the small strip of parchment from my hands and set it alight with his wand tip. He let the small flame burn all the way up until it was millimetres from his fingers, then he dropped it and it burned out on the dry cement of the pavement. He motioned for us to move forward. I followed Tonks as she led the way up the steps. Before pushing open the front door she stopped and turned to me.

"Don't say anything in the hall, alright? And... Forget everything you ever thought you knew about Sirius Black." I was about to ask her to elaborate when she opened the door.

She ushered me in the house and closed the door behind Dubledore. He took the lead and I followed him through the dingy house past strange objects and decorations and large amounts of mildew and general decay. It was a lot less glamorous than I was expecting from a world famous organisation but I supposed that they mustn't have a lot of resources to work with, seeing as they were operating in secret against a problem that technically didn't even exist – at least, according to the Ministry.

We walked until we reached a dark but spacious kitchen with a large table in the middle of the room. There were a few people scattered around the place. There was a plump woman in pastel coloured robes with red hair standing at the counter magically chopping vegetables. Two more redheaded men were conversing on the other side of the room. One man was middle aged and the other was much younger. I recognised him as Bill Weasley. He had been a couple of years above me in Hogwarts but he had gone out with a friend of mine so I had talked to him a few times. He had always been perfectly pleasant. I assumed the other man must be his father and the woman his mother.

Sitting at the table was a dishevelled man in tatty robes with some poorly healed scratches and cuts on his face and hands. He looked exhausted but he was managing to keep up a conversation with a man with shoulder length, dark hair who was sitting with his back to me. Kingsley Shacklebolt, a face I recognised from the aurror offices, was also sitting with these two men, though his eyes were on me as I entered, rather than paying attention to the conversation. There were more people strewn about the room talking casually.

It took me a moment to pick out the pair lurking in a corner. They were two people I had not seen in years and thought I would never see again; Mad-Eye Moody, who had once given us a terrifying lecture in my first few weeks at aurror training, and Severus Snape, my least favourite teacher in school. Well, maybe my second least favourite. I had always hated Binns. I had no patience for boredom and his classes were just an endless stream of nothingness.

The room barely stirred when I came in. They were clearly used to having new faces appear. Or perhaps they just didn't care.

Dumbledore took a seat on one side of the dark haired man and Tonks sat next to him. People started to drift towards the table now and I pulled out the chair on the other side of the dark haired man, opposite Kingsley.

"Welcome, Phoebe," Kingsley nodded to me in greeting. I said hello in return. Then I turned to introduce myself to the dark haired man on my right but instead of saying 'hi, I'm Phoebe' I lept out of my seat in surprise.

"Holy mother of-" I just managed to cut myself off before I swore colourfully in front of a room full of strangers and highly respectable people.

I knew that face. There was no way that I could _not_ know that face. I walked past a wall plastered in pictures of that face every day to get to the bathrooms in work. I even remember the pictures of him in the paper when I was only about eight or nine when he was arrested. And the pictures in the paper when he escaped.

Sirius Black. The murdering death eater.

I suddenly understood what Tonks had said outside the front door. '_Forget everything you ever thought you knew about Sirius Black_'.

"Nice to meet you. My name's Sirius." He muttered with a dark, humourless smile as he turned to face me.


	3. Chapter 3

I looked across at Kingsley. He was staring blankly at me. I wanted to shout out the words 'you sneaky little bastard!" but I didn't think it would have been appropriate. Only last week he had grilled into me for wasting time on a report that 'had to potential to capture Black once and for all'.

Then I looked back to Black. I could clearly remember the first time I had ever seen a picture of Sirius Black as a young man. He had been damn sexy in his youth. But unfortunately Azkaban had sucked most of it out of him. He looked like an inferius version of himself with his pale, waxy, hollow face and his scraggy, matted shoulder length hair. And there was something dark hidden at the back of his grey eyes that made him look like a haunted soul. Yet he still had an aura of something regal and elegant as he lounged on the simple wooden chair.

"Please, sit down Phoebe." Dumbledore gave me a level stare with his icy blue eyes and I begrudgingly sat back down. I did, however shift my seat a few inches to the left away from Black.

"Before we begin, it's important for you to understand this," Dumbledore addressed me. "Sirius Black is, in fact, an innocent man." I grunted in indignation.

"That's what they all say..." I muttered.

"Yeah, well, most of them aren't drinking tea with the head of their investigation squad and Albus Dumbledore." Replied Black sourly.

"I am afraid, Phoebe, that this is, as they say, a deal breaker. You either accept Sirius' innocence and swear to keep his whereabouts a secret or else I will be forced to escort you outside and modify memory."

I did not want to jeopardise my one chance to be in the Order of the Phoenix. However, this was _Sirius Black_ that we were talking about - the man who murdered a handful of people in broad day light in front of countless witnesses. I couldn't quite see how their story worked out.

"Ok then..." I kept my voice as casual as I could. "If Sirius is innocent then who killed Peter Pettigrew?"

"No one." Dumbledore replied simply. "Peter Pettigrew is still alive."

"Much to my displeasure..." Sirius added.

"Excuse me...?" I looked at him in disbelief. "You're trying to tell me that one of the most famous murders of all time was not only pinned on the wrong guy but that it never actually happened in the first place...?"

"Yes, that's right," Dumbledore almost smiled.

The whole thing sounded very unlikely. I was beginning to reconsider all of the accusations in the news paper against Dumbledore's sanity that I had dismissed so loyally. I stared around the table at every face. Each of them was looking straight back at me, as if daring me to contradict Albus freakin' Dumbledore.

Then my eyes fell on Mad-Eye Moody. That man was so naturally suspicious of everything that he once tackled my elderly Magical Concealment professor in the corridor for scratching his own wrist...

Moody's non-magical eye met mine and he nodded slowly. If _he _could believe this nonsense then it _had_ to be true. I turned back to face Black.

"So, how exactly did Peter Pettigrew escape, then?" Black looked amused as he regarded me.

"You're easily convinced. You must be a _great_ aurror."

"Oh, you're in hiding? You must be a _great_ asset to the order!" I retorted in a mocking tone. His amusement quickly faded into a sour expression. I got the impression that I had touched a nerve.

"Well, with that settled, let us begin the meeting." Dumbledore said with the air of trying to move the conversation on before it turned nasty.

The experience was surreal. They seemed to think that the best way to initiate me into the group was to simply chuck me into the deep end and see if I swam. They didn't stop to explain anything or summarise previous activity. If I wanted more information it was up to me to ask questions. And even then I was given just a brief answer and the conversation continued.

They began by discussing some mysterious guard duty. Then Snape gave a run through of some of the death eater plans that he had been told about, though I didn't know how he had received such valuable information. They made plans to place certain houses of known death eaters under surveillance. A team was also assembled to camp outside the residence of a potential victim. Then Black informed everyone that he had received a letter from Harry – I could only guess that he was talking about _the _Harry Potter – in which he had expressed some concern about Delores Umbridge, who I gathered was teaching at Hogwarts this year. They spent a few minutes dissecting the behaviour of Umbridge before finally coming to the conclusion that she was nothing to worry about for the moment. Then everyone stood up and the meeting was over.

It had all passed by me so quickly that I hardly had any time to process any of it. As half the group left the kitchen to make their way to the front door the rest of the people milled around, making small talk about the meeting or each other's family. Black got up and walked to the other side of the room as quickly as he could where he stuck up a conversation with Bill Weasley.

"It's a little overwhelming," someone said across the table. It took me a moment to realise that the voice was directed at me. I looked up to see the shabby man who had been talking to Black when I walked in smiling across at me.

"Yes," I quickly agreed."

"You'll get used to it. If you have any questions, I would be happy to explain. My name is Remus Lupin," he stretched out a hand and I shook it.

"Phoebe O'Brien,"

"I apologise for the fast pace of the meeting," Remus said. "But if we stopped and explained everything then we wouldn't get through anything." He smiled apologetically.

"Oh, don't worry about it, it's fine. I'll catch up"

"I have no doubt about it."

"I like you." I said bluntly. He looked at me in mild surprise and amusement. "I think we're going to be friends." He didn't say anything but continued to smile mildly and dropped his gaze.

At that moment Kingsley walked over to me. I immediately stood up from my seat and turned to confront him.

"I am sorry for being harsh with you," he spoke before I had a chance to open my mouth. "I hope you understand that I have a role to play in the Ministry if I want to avoid suspicion."

When he put it like that it was difficult for me to hold it against him. I swallowed my angry accusations and met his gaze.

"Yeah, I get it. Nothing personal, right?" I was being a little sarcastic with the last bit but he either didn't notice or pretended not to. He agreed that he had not meant it personally and then he walked away to speak to someone else. I turned to resume my conversation with Remus but he too had begun talking to someone else. I cast around looking for someone that I could strike up a conversation with but everyone looked pretty engrossed in what they were already doing. I felt a little like the new kid in the playground.

"Phoebe," a voice called my name from behind me. Mrs Weasley was coming over to me. "You will stay for dinner, won't you?"

"Oh, I already ate, actually, but thanks anyway. In fact, I really must be going soon. Do you know when the next meeting will be?"

"Sometime next week, I expect. Tonks will let you know."

I thanked her and moved towards the door. On my way I was stopped by Dumbledore.

"Phoebe, someone has just informed me that they cannot do their survailance duty this evening. I hate to ask you with so little notice, but do you think you could step in? You will be with Bill Weasley, he is supposed to be on watch duty tonight."

"Yeah, of course I can step in. No problem!" I couldn't have dreamed that my first mission for the Order would could so soon.

"Excellent, I will inform Bill. You'll need to leave at once."

I stood beside the door and waited for Dumbledore to return with Bill. My imagination was going ballistic as it conjured up crazy scenarios that we might get caught it in and have to battle our way out of. I had a feeling that being a member of the Order was going to be pretty awesome.


End file.
